Chapter SATIN to SAYER of S by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

SAUGOR, SAUGOR ISLAND, n.p. A famous island at the mouth of the Hoogly R., the site of a great fair and pilgrimage—properly Ganga Sagara (‘Ocean Ganges’). It is said once to have been populous, but in 1688 (the date is clearly wrong) to have been swept by a cyclone wave. It is now a dense jungle haunted by tigers.

1683.—“We went in our Budgeros to see ye Pagodas at Sagor, and returned to ye Oyster River, where we got as many Oysters as we desired.”—Hedges, March 12; [Hak. Soc. i. 68].

1684.—“James Price assured me that about 40 years since, when ye Island called Gonga Sagur was inhabited, ye Raja of ye Island gathered yearly Rent out of it, to ye amount of 26 Lacks of Rupees.”—Ibid. Dec. 15; [Hak. Soc. i. 172.]

1705.—“Sagore est une Isle où il y a une Pagode très-respectée parmi les Gentils, où ils vont en pelerinage, et où il y a deux Faquers qui y font leur residence. Ces Faquers sçavent charmer les bêtes feroces, qu’on y trouve en quantité, sans quoi ils seroient tous les jours exposés à estre devorez.”—Luillier, p. 123.

1727.—“… among the Pagans, the Island Sagor is accounted holy, and great numbers of Jougies go yearly thither in the Months of November and December, to worship and wash in Salt- Water, tho’ many of them fall Sacrifices to the hungry Tigers.”— A. Hamilton, ii. 3; [ed. 1744].

SAUL-WOOD, s. Hind. sal, from Skt. sala; the timber of the tree Shorea robusta, Gaertner, N.O. Dipterocarpeae, which is the most valuable building timber of Northern India. Its chi ef habitat is the forest immediate ly under the Himalaya, at intervals throughout that region from the Brahmaputra to the Bias; it abounds also in various more southerly tracts between the Ganges and the Godavery. [The botanical name is taken from Sir John Shore. For the peculiar habitat of the Sal as compared with the Teak, see Forsyth, Highlands of C.I. 25 seqq.] It is strong and durable, but very heavy, so that it cannot be floated without more buoyant aids, and is, on that and other accounts, inferior to teak. It does not appear among eight kinds of timber in general use, mentioned in the Ain. The saul has been introduced into China, perhaps at a remote period, on account of its connection with Buddha’s history, and it is known there by the Indian name, so-lo (Bretschneider on Chinese Botan. Works, p. 6).

c. 650.—“L’Honorable du siecle, anime d’une grande pitié, et obéissant à l’ordre des temps, jugea utile de paraitre dans le monde. Quand il eut fini de convertir les hommes, il se plongea dans les joies du Nirvâna. Se plaçant entre deux arbres Sâlas, il tourna sa tête vers le nord et s’endormit.”—Hiouen Thsang, Mémoires (Voyages des Pèl. Bouddh. ii. 340).

1765.—“The produce of the country consists of shaal timbers (a wood equal in quality to the best of our oak).”—Holwell, Hist. Events, &c., i. 200.

1774.—“This continued five kos; towards the end there are sal and large forest trees.” —Bogle, in Markham’s Tibet, 19.

1810.—“The saul is a very solid wood … it is likewise heavy, yet by no means so ponderous as teak; both, like many of our former woods, sink in fresh water.”— Williamson, V.M. ii. 69.

SAYER, SYRE, &c., s. Hind. from Arab. sa’ir, a word used technically for many years in the Indian accounts to cover a variety of items of taxation and impost, other than the Land Revenue.

The transitions of meaning in Arabic words are (as we have several times had occasion to remark) very obscure; and until we undertook the investigation of the subject for this article (a task in which we are indebted to the kind help of Sir H. Waterfield, of the India Office, one of the busiest men in the public service, but, as so often happens, one of the readiest to render assistance) the obscurity attaching to the word sayer in this sense was especially great.

Wilson, s.v. says: “In its original purport the word signifies moving, walking, or the whole, the remainder; from the latter it came to denote the remaining, or all other, sources of revenue accruing to the Government in addition to the land-tax.” In fact, according to this explanation, the application of the term might be illustrated by the ancient story of a German Professor lecturing on botany in the pre-scientific period. He is reported to have said: ‘Every plant, gentlemen, is divided into two parts. This is the root,—and this is the rest of it!’ Land revenue was the root, and all else was ‘the rest of it.’

Sir C. Trevelyan again, in a passage quoted below, says that the Arabic word has “the same meaning as ‘miscellaneous.’” Neither of these explanations, we conceive, pace tantorum virorum, is correct.

The term Sayer in the 18th century was applied to a variety of inland imposts, but especially to local and arbitrary charges levied by zemindars and other individuals, with a show of authority, on all goods passing through their estates by land or water, or sold at markets (bazar, haut, gunge) established by them, charges which formed in the aggregate an enormous burden upon the trade of the country.

Now